Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo
State has vowed not to cede any land in Imo State to the Federal Government for
the establishment of the planned cattle colony.

Okorocha also dismissed the
speculations that he had adopted the proposed colonies and ceded a part of the
state to herders as wicked, unfounded and untrue.

The governor who spoke on Tuesday
in Owerri, the state capital, through the state Commissioner for Information,
Prof. Nnamdi Obiaraeri, said there was no law, policy, decision, plan, request
or intention to cede, allocate or designate any part of Imo State as a cattle
colony.

The governor said, “This
information that Imo has ceded a part for the proposed cattle colony is wicked,
unfounded and untrue, although it represents the typical product of warped
thinking of desperate mischief makers via the social media.

“Imo people and members of the
public are therefore advised to disregard these baseless and laughable rumours.

“It is unfortunate that
manufacturing wicked and capricious lies on an hourly basis has become the
hallmark or DNA of desperate opposition politicians in our dear state.”

Similarly, the Senator
representing Southern Kaduna, Danjuma Laah, had on Tuesday asked the Federal
Government not to expect any land from the zone for the planned cattle
colonies.

Laah said, “Kaduna South
Senatorial Zone and, by extension, the entire Southern Kaduna rejects any
attempt to seize more of its lands for the exclusive settlement of herdsmen and
their cattle, using state power.

“Already, there is an existing
Cattle Grazing Reserve in Laduga from land taken away from the indigenes of
Zangon Kataf and Kachia Local Government Areas dating back decades ago.

“That massive land officially
gazetted at 32,000 hectaress, (32,000 football fields), but which the present
Kaduna State Government has expanded to 74,000 hectare, was taken from my
constituents without compensation till date, as records have it.”

“Ask us for lands to site
universities, government institutions etc, we are willing to give out our land
in partnership with industrialists, mechanised farmers, estate developers and
all positive social and economic endeavours that are of mutual benefits to everyone.

“No land in Southern Kaduna is
free again for the exclusive economic benefit of a group of people who have
paid us with mass murder and destruction in scores of our settlements since
2011 for humanely accommodating them and their forebears.”